The Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority of Saskatchewan is cautioning local investors, as they have identified several suspicious online entities used for trading that are not registered.
The trading platforms people are being alerted of include PolaxGroup, BNY Market, Bucok Coins, and Digital FIN Solutions.
Brett Wawro, director of enforcement at the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority, is keen to notify community members of the risks and dangers of investing with platforms that are not registered.
"They're all eerily similar," he said. "All four of them are unregistered online trading platforms that people have gotten themselves involved with and unfortunately have lost some sums of money over."
These illegitimate companies are offering currency pairs, a type of trading process that's very complex and more similar to 4X trading.
"The biggest and most important consequence is you can lose all of the money you invested," Wawro said. "A lot of the time, especially when it's converted over to cryptocurrency, it's sent over and instantaneously it's gone, it's moved to multiple wallets and virtually untraceable after that."
Wawro notes that there are only around 10 to 12 legitimate registered cryptocurrency companies that offer service in Canada, yet countless groups are claiming to.
The best and most effective way to find out if a trading platform or online company in Sask. is registered is to enter them into www.aretheyregistered.ca.
"One of the biggest things we're finding is most people are getting involved because they think they're missing out on some big craze," he added. "People are getting involved in stuff that they completely don't understand, which is scary."